MyAccess Sign In

About MyAccess

If your institution subscribes to this resource, and you don't have a MyAccess Profile, please contact your library's reference desk for information on how to gain access to this resource from off-campus.

Introduction

As concerning the bringing up, nourishment and giving of suckle to the child, it shal be beste that the mother give her child sucke her selfe, for the mothers milk is more convenient and agreeable to the infant than any other woman’s or other milke.

Education for the puerperium and caring for the baby should begin during pregnancy so that a new mother is familiar with the basic principles of motherhood, especially infant feeding.1 The puerperium is defined as the period of approximately 42 days from the completion of the third stage to the return of the normal physiological state.

The newborn screening test or ‘heel prick’ test should have been performed on the baby routinely. The testing from a single blood sample should include cystic fibrosis, phenylketonuria, congenital hypothyroidism, galactosaemia and several other uncommon metabolic conditions.

The mother should remain in the labour ward (if delivered in hospital) for at least an hour after giving birth and until she has passed urine. She should be inspected frequently to exclude the possibility of a silent postpartum haemorrhage and vital signs checked before transferring to a lying-in ward. It is worth remembering that one-third of eclamptic convulsions occur postpartum.

It is important to educate postpartum women on care of the baby and breastfeeding, self-care, hygiene, healing of the genital tract, sexual life and contraception, nutrition and what happens to their bodies and preventive issues. The uterus involutes to non-pregnant size by 6 weeks and the cervical os should be closed by 2–3 weeks post delivery.2